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Global Land Indicators Initiative (GLII)

Group photo from the EGM on securing women's land rights in the SDGs, New York -2017

Developing Globally Comparable Land Indicators

for Comparable Data

The need to step up monitoring of land governance issues drove the establishment of the Global Land Indicators Initiative (GLII) in 2012 by Millennium Challenge Corporation, the World Bank and UN-Habitat. The platform is hosted and facilitated by Land and Global Land Tool Network Unit in UN-Habitat. GLII is a collaborative and inclusive process for developing Global Land Indicators. GLII partners aim at making global scale monitoring of land governance a reality by 2021. GLII has now grown to include over 50 institutions around the world ranging from UN Agencies, Inter-governmental Organizations, International Nongovernmental organizations, Academia, Private Sector, Researchers and Training Institutions, and Farmer Organizations. Regional institutions like Land Policy Initiative (LPI), the UN Statistical Commission for Africa, National Statistical Offices and Regional Statistical Training Centers are strategic partners of GLII. The platform created space that facilitated global land community to engage in the post-2015 development agenda, making a major contribution to the decision that saw the inclusion of land target and indicators in the SDGs with the backing of The Global Donor Working Group on Land and other agencies.

Other GLII achievements include the development of a set of 15 nationally applicable and global comparable land indicators that go beyond the provisions of land in the SDGs to cover four key areas of land governance: land tenure security for all, land and conflict, land administration services, and sustainable land use management. The platform has also facilitated the development and piloting of methodology and tools for data collection on tenure security in a number of countries and facilitated the developed a Training Curriculum on Methodology for Data Collection and Reporting on Land Indicators fostering global learning and knowledge sharing. Members of this platform continue to explore innovative means of land data collecting, monitoring, and reporting, including steering land and data community consultations for harmonized indicators and methodology for land data generation, linking country to regional and global processes.

The adoption of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda in September 2015 increased attention of global land community on the need to strengthen the statistical and data capacity of countries to measure, monitor and report on targets and indicators on land. Global coordination and collaboration with governments, regional bodies like AU-Land Policy Initiative, the private sector, academia and agencies responsible for land indicators in the SDG 1, 5, 11 and 15 is paramount for synergy, uptake of comparable data protocols for monitoring and reporting on land indicators in the SDGs. The importance of land in urban development and the need to monitor land governance in urban areas is further underscored in the New Urban Agenda endorsed by the UN Member States during the Habitat III Conference in October 2016.

A 3-year GLII roadmap, including partners’ statement on GLII value addition and key areas of focus, was developed at a global expert group meeting held in January 2017, in Cape Town, South Africa. The roadmap is set to guide GLII’s work for the next 3 years in partnership with the platform members and other strategic actors including donors at country, regional and global level. Key areas of focus including convening and coordination of land and data communities to make land monitoring for the SDGs, VGGTs and other global and regional frameworks a reality through robust country level monitoring using comparable methodology and tools for data collection and capacity strengthening in land data generation, analysis and reporting including gender disaggregated data; increasing update of comprehensive GLII land indicators to collect complimentary land data; enhance advocacy, communication and influencing of relevant actors to champion land monitoring agenda; and promoting rigorous research and knowledge management on land monitoring issues at country, regional and global level.

The GLII mandate includes:

Coordinating, convening and facilitating dialogues between land governance and data communities on land monitoring and best prac­tices;

Developing nationally applicable and global­ly comparable land indicators and data protocols for land monitoring;

Raising awareness and facilitating capacity strengthening for land and statistical institu­tions in land data generation including gender disaggregated data, analysis and reporting, and uptake of new data technologies.

Promoting the use of evidence based ap­proach to land monitoring and impact mea­surement of tenure security measures policy influencing; and use of open land data reposi­tories.

Research and knowledge management on land monitoring and emerging trends for learning and decision making.